MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: 
Randy Borow

  • Hometown: North Riverside, Illinois
  • Campus: UIUC
  • Illinois Degree(s) & Major(s): B.A. Political Science, Concentration in Constitutional Law; Minor in Spanish & Business
  • Year of Illinois graduation: 1988
  • Favorite UI Memory: Illini Union bowling alley every Friday night with friends, then we hit the bars and got drunk. Close 2nd: 2 dozen family members and other relatives coming down for a football game, tailgating, and a biscuit fight in a local hotel hallway (you'll just have to ask me about it).
  • Favorite Place on Campus: Illini Union basement with the bowling alley and video arcade games. Close 2nd: the Quad
  • Favorite Illini athlete: George ""Papa Bear"" Halas
  • Favorite class at Illinois: I don't remember the course #, but 2nd semester sophomore year and 2nd semester year senior year I had constitutional law classes with Professor Ira Carmen, who to this day remains as one of my 2 favorite teachers of all time.
  • Favorite UIUC Bar/Restaurant: Garcia's pizza (the ""Flying Tomato Brothers"")
  • Moved to Houston: 2012
  • What brought you to Houston: One year shy of earning tenure in the suburban Chicago school district in which I was employed, I was non-renewed (along with 21 other third year teachers). While looking for a new teaching job in the Chicago metro area, I also searched in the Houston area, because my brother and his family had moved to that area in 2002 due to a job situation. I had numerous Zoom and in-person interviews for teaching jobs in the Houston area and only ONE interview in the Chicago area——over the 17-month period in which I had been searching. Needless to say, I ended up receiving a nice offer from HISD and had literally 12 days to pack up everything I owned and relocate to Houston in the summer of 2012. The fact that during my many visits to see my brother over the years he had lived in Texas, I wisely made the decision to obtain a permanent Texas teaching certificate just in case I ever found the desire or need to relocate to the state. I didn't know then that that decision was both smart and prescient.
  • Favorite things About Houston: In no specific order of importance: 1) The weather, specifically the lack of a cold, brutal winter. 2) No state income tax. 3) Lower gas prices than Illinois. 4) Great people! 5) The fact that having to stop at red lights in not just Houston but throughout the state of Texas is apparently optional (it's also at the same time my LEAST favorite thing about Houston and the state of Texas in general).
  • Favorite places in Houston: Well, now that Portillo's has opened here, I'll have to say Portillo's!😁 But taking them out of the equation, one of my favorite is NASA, especially since I have a friend who works there. In fact, this friend was a classmate of my sister at the same K-8 elementary school my sister, my brother (both of whom are younger than me), and I attended——talking about a small world! This friend has gotten me and family members into parts of NASA's headquarters that are otherwise off limits to the public.
  • Occupation: Educator in the Cy-Fair ISD. This is my 5th year in Cy-Fair ISD after having spent 8 years in HISD. I'm a career changer, having spent 25+ years in sales and sales management, then becoming a teacher in 2005. In 2017 I received my Master's degree in Educational Leadership & Supervision and obtained my principal certification, making me eligible to serve as an administrator from a Principal to an Assistant Principal to a Dean. I do admit, however, that I truly enjoy being a classroom teacher and have no plans to change that at this time.
  • Something special about me: I've run for office in Illinois, for the U.S. House of Representatives specifically, winning the primary but getting crushed in the general election (running for Congress was definitely the stupidest thing I've ever done). On the positive side now... Of the things that might be special about me, I am definitely and absolutely immensely the proudest and most joyful over my having had the honor of personally meeting, speaking to, and being blessed by Pope John Paul II while I was visiting Saint Peter's at the Vatican on September 6, 1995. As a person who is a Roman Catholic and of 100% Polish descent, the opportunity to personally meet the Pope, with my parents accompanying me, was and still is to this day the most memorable thing I have ever done and experienced. Indeed, for how many people today get to say honestly that they have met and been blessed by a saint? (Note: please contact me for some photographs of this historically memorable event, as I cannot paste them or upload them here.)
  • How to get in contact: E-Mail

  To nominate yourself or a friend for the spotlight, complete this form today!